


Like A Sunless Garden

by Atalan



Series: Pray For Us, Icarus [3]
Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Aziraphale is having a very bad time, Crowley is Human (?), Historical References, How We Got Here, Language of Flowers, M/M, Memory Loss, Reincarnation, Sadness, be warned, but this one hurts, it doesn't stick but, it's still pretty heavy in places, repeated character death, things will get better in the next fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-19
Updated: 2019-08-19
Packaged: 2020-09-07 13:28:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 4
Words: 15,260
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20310283
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Atalan/pseuds/Atalan
Summary: AU. Aziraphale should have known better. From the very start, he should have known better. But he just keeps making the same mistakes, and it isn't only him who has to pay for them.Sequel to "Flowers for Anthony" and "Who Pluck'd Thee From Thy Stalk", multi-chapter, Aziraphale POV on what's been going on.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Русский available: [Без солнца сад](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21487915) by [Varfolomeeva](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Varfolomeeva/pseuds/Varfolomeeva)
  * Translation into 中文 available: [如一座晦暗的庭园](https://archiveofourown.org/works/22399036) by [Softgem](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Softgem/pseuds/Softgem)
  * Translation into Español available: [Como un jardín sin sol](https://archiveofourown.org/works/25702195) by [YumeUshka](https://archiveofourown.org/users/YumeUshka/pseuds/YumeUshka)

_London, 1660_

"They're saying it's a miracle." Crowley's voice was unexpected, but somehow not a surprise. Aziraphale tried not to smile, glanced sideways in time to see him sidling into place in his satin-lined short coat and the new, looser style of breeches. "Deliverance from all the chaos of the Commonwealth."

"I couldn't possibly comment," Aziraphale replied, adjusting his collar and watching as the newly-crowned Charles II waved to his subjects. "Let's hope he's better at the job than his father."

"Pity it didn't work out." Crowley leaned forward, watching the coronation from behind his dark glasses. "It was a nice idea, no more kings."

"Yes. Perhaps they'll get back to it someday. When things are a little less... unsettled."

"When are things _ever_ less unsettled, angel?"

"One must live in hope."

"Oh, must one?" That sideways grin, the darting glance. "Speaking of hope, I don't suppose the food around here's improved in the last fifty years, has it?"

"As a matter of fact, I know a lovely little place—"

"Of course you do."

"—but unfortunately, I'm leaving London tonight."

"Oh." Real disappointment flickered over Crowley's face and warmed Aziraphale's heart. "Will you be gone long?"

"Some years, I suspect. The Ottomans are getting rather frisky again and I've been told to go and give old Leopold a bit of a hand."

"Well," Crowley said, feigning nonchalance, shifting his weight from foot to foot. "I don't have any plans for the next decade. I'll just stick around here until you get back. We can have dinner then."

Aziraphale bit his lip against the smile that would have given far too much away.

"I'll look forward to it," he said.

* * *

The worst part - no, that was a foolish way to phrase it. _Worst part_ implied that there might, somehow, be some parts that were _better_, were tolerable, were less awful than others.

But the thing that _haunted_ Aziraphale was how long it took him to go looking. How, when he found no sign of Crowley upon his return to a London forever changed by the Great Fire, he was disappointed and a little annoyed, but simply assumed Crowley had grown bored, or been called away on Hell's business.

He should have known better. Crowley had never broken a promise to him. He'd said he'd wait. Aziraphale should have known better. Should have known sooner that something was wrong.

As it was, he didn't start to become concerned until the century began to draw to a close, and by then, the trail was cold.

* * *

_Sicily, 1692_

Aziraphale never forgot that first sight of him, that first time. Kneeling in the dirt, working the soil with his bare hands, hair longer than Aziraphale had seen it for nearly two thousand years, braided roughly. His clothes were simple and worn-out and lacked all his usual flair. His skin was brown from a life in the sun, his fingers red with rusty Mediterranean dirt, his shoulders bowed. He looked much younger than he should, but also more worn-in, like he'd spent that shorter span of years toiling ceaselessly. It wasn't much of a garden, but every scrap had been put to use growing vegetables to feed the tiny cottage behind it, and the wisteria that sprawled over its trellis on the side of the house was at the height of its late summer second bloom.

Aziraphale leaned on the wall and let out a long breath of relief, and then allowed himself to feel properly aggrieved.

"So this is where you've been hiding," he said. "Really, you could at least have let me know—"

Crowley's head came up, startled, staring at him, and Aziraphale's heart stopped in his chest.

"Your eyes!" he gasped. "What—- what happened to your eyes?"

"I... don't speak your language," Crowley said hesitantly in the local dialect, a frown on his face. "Do you speak mine, sir?"

Aziraphale gaped at him.

"What are you playing at, Crowley?" he demanded, reluctantly slipping into his somewhat rusty Sicilian. "What on Earth have you done to your eyes?"

Crowley scrambled to his feet, and to Aziraphale's amazement and dismay, took several steps backwards.

"How do you know my name?"

"How do I— Crowley, it's _me_. You do _know_ me, don't you?"

And to his disbelief, Crowley shook his head, and Aziraphale saw nothing in his face but honest confusion. No hint of teasing, no indication that this was some tasteless joke. His all-too-human eyes with their round pupils and their honey-brown irises were full of doubt and wariness.

"I'm afraid I don't, sir," Crowley said. "Can I be of some assistance?"

"No," Aziraphale said faintly. "No, I— I don't think you can. Forgive me, I... must have confused you with someone else."

* * *

He took a room in the town. He didn't know what else to do. He walked out past the cottage every day. Crowley lived quietly, it seemed, and on the edge of poverty like so many others in these rural communities. He tended his garden and tended his goats and cut wisteria blossoms to take to the market every week, to earn a few extra coins.

He had _history_ here. There were people in the village who remembered his birth, his childhood, his parents (now departed, rest their souls). If this was miracle work, it was the most complex and subtle rearrangement of memories that Aziraphale had ever encountered. Not only that, but as far as he could tell, Crowley was completely human. There were no traces of demonic power about him. 

Aziraphale tested it, finally, approaching Crowley in the market and, with a wave of his hand, obscuring the memory of their first meeting, soothing away the wariness that Crowley had shown towards him ever since. He met as little resistance as he would from any human.

Crowley blinked, shook his head slightly, and smiled at Aziraphale, his distrust gone. Aziraphale's heart sank. He folded his hands tightly together to hide his trembling fingers.

"Hello," Crowley said, as friendly as he had been in the Garden. "I've seen you around town. English, are you?"

"Yes," Aziraphale replied, for want of a better option. "These... these flowers are lovely."

Crowley looked pleased, a simple pride and satisfaction that Aziraphale couldn't ever remember seeing on his face before. He cast a considering eye over the bunches of wisteria and selected one with the care and intent of a craftsman choosing the perfect piece of wood to carve. He held it out to Aziraphale.

"Keep them in water, they'll last a week or so," he said. "And I'll have more next time."

"How much?"

Crowley shrugged. "A gift."

Aziraphale took the flowers, ensuring, with a brush of his fingertips, that they would stay fresh and perfect for a lot longer than a week.

"Thank you," he stammered.

* * *

Aziraphale didn't know where to turn. He dared not report to Heaven. He had no means of obtaining information from Hell. He suspected some punishment had been levied against Crowley by his superiors, in which case, there was little Aziraphale could do except wait for the sentence to expire.

If this was punishment, though, it was a strange choice. Crowley's life here was neither glamorous nor easy, but he seemed... _content_ with it. With no awareness of what he'd lost, there was no torment, nothing that would satisfy Hell's need to cause suffering.

Aziraphale even considered the possibility... that Crowley had somehow _chosen _this. Done it to himself. How he could have achieved it, Aziraphale couldn't begin to guess, but he had seen Crowley do quite remarkable things in their time on Earth. And he had seen Crowley weep, too, and rage against all he'd witnessed of human misery, and lean his head wearily against the wall as though his very existence were too heavy a burden to bear. Was it so hard to believe that he might have sought an escape of some kind?

But no, he'd promised. He'd promised to wait in London, and he would never... Crowley would never have done such a thing without at least telling Aziraphale of his intentions. Even if he'd kept it secret to prevent Aziraphale from interfering, he would have found a way to leave a message.

Wouldn't he?

Aziraphale went back to the market every week for as long as the wisteria was in bloom, collecting fresh bunches of flowers (he insisted on paying, after the first time) that never wilted. His room became an arbour of fragrant blossoms. When there came a week that Crowley had no more to sell, he thought he felt his heart break a little, but Crowley smiled at him so sweetly it caught his breath, and said that though the flowers were over for the season, if he ever cared to come sit in the cool shade beneath the leafy vines, he'd be most welcome to a cup of wine.

* * *

Who knew what the villagers thought of the Englishman lingering in their midst and seeming to do nothing but visit the market and walk the country lanes? Who knew what Crowley thought of him, really? But as the season slowly cooled into autumn, they sat together under the wisteria for hours of an evening.

It was strange, talking to Crowley like this. Their far-ranging philosophical debates were gone, their sharing of thousands of years of memory, their commentary on the humans around them. This Crowley had never had access to books or papers, could barely read, had no shared knowledge of the topics they used to debate, but he was as keenly intelligent as ever, quick to learn, eager to listen. He was certainly quick enough to catch the occasional moments when Aziraphale let something slip, and Aziraphale felt as though he had to be constantly on his guard, choosing his words with care. It was hard work, sometimes, and there were nights when he missed the _real_ Crowley so much he could hardly stand it.

And yet it was also... there was a quietness, an easiness to it, a sense of simplicity that they had never had the luxury of sharing. Aziraphale had never known Crowley not to be looking over his shoulder, not to be swathed in his armour of insouciance. It had been nearly seven hundred years since Aziraphale had even seen him without those dark glasses of his, and although his eyes now were _wrong_, there was a tremulous joy in seeing them so unguarded, and so often lingering on Aziraphale's face.

Autumn faded into the gentle Sicilian winter, and there was less for Crowley to do in the fields, more time spent on small homecrafts. Crowley could spin, and weave, and sew, and Aziraphale watched his clever hands in fascination, how they turned coarse wool to smooth yarn to soft, simple fabric.

He didn't find it strange that Crowley solicited more and more of his company, that they were together more than they were apart. It was only the same dance they'd been stepping to for centuries, played to a faster tempo, given a scattering of new turns. He'd forgotten, as Christmastide passed and the new year began, that for humans such things were often a path to a particular destination, and that Crowley saw him through human eyes.

One night, the earth shook as they were rising from supper, one of the quakes that struck the area sometimes, strong enough to send Aziraphale reeling. Crowley caught him, held him steady as they waited for the tremors to stop, hands warm on his back, legs braced against the bucking land with the ease of practice. When the quake subsided, Aziraphale clung to him a few moments longer, regaining his balance, and that was when Crowley's hand slid from his back, to his upper arm, to his cheek; cupped his face, thumb brushing along the line of his jaw. 

They never touched, not like this, and the surprise and the softness of it took Aziraphale unawares, so that for a moment he leaned into the gesture, let his eyes flutter closed as he regained his breath. And then had it stolen a second time, as Crowley kissed him, gentle and eager, fingers running into Aziraphale's hair, the other hand on his back drawing him close enough to feel Crowley's rapid heartbeat.

It was simple panic that drove Aziraphale to push him away so forcefully, that made him retreat almost to the other side of the room in shock.

"What— what are you _doing_?"

"I— I thought—" Crowley stared at him in the dim twilight, the crickets and the birds outside beginning a belated, raucous chorus as if to protest the heaving earth that had disturbed them.

"You thought wrong," Aziraphale stuttered, his face burning, his whole body shaking, and then he fled, trying to block from his mind the image of Crowley catching hold of the table for support, suddenly unsure of his footing even though the tremors had stopped.

* * *

Aziraphale stayed away the day after. Crowley didn't seek him out. He dined alone for the first time in months. He touched his lips, over and over, and as the shock subsided, he was stunned and dismayed by the longing that rose up in him, to go back to the cottage, to return the kiss and soothe away the hurt he'd dealt by leaving. His thoughts were a jumbled mess, a quagmire; he paced his room all night, haunted by the scent of the ever-perfect wisteria blossoms, and the next day he still didn't know what to do.

Crowley came to the house where he was staying, a little past noon, but Aziraphale told the woman who hosted him that he was unwell and unable to see visitors. He watched through the crack in the shutters as Crowley left again, shoulders slumped. _He's not himself_, Aziraphale thought, _he doesn't understand, he doesn't know what he's doing_.

He paced the afternoon away. He wished with all his heart that he could bring back the _real_ Crowley, the one who called him _angel_ and knew where all the lines were and which ones could not be crossed. Almost all his heart, at least. A treacherous, selfish corner of it whispered that _this_ Crowley knew exactly what he was doing, knew no reason not to offer all of himself so freely, knew what he wanted and how to ask for it.

Aziraphale took supper with his hosts, late in the evening as was the custom, and when the second quake hit - or, as Aziraphale would understand later, the _real_ quake, for which the previous tremor had been but a foreshock - although the house collapsed around them, the family miraculously survived.

Others in the village weren't so lucky, and at first Aziraphale rushed from house to house, doing what he could for survivors, never thinking of Crowley. How many such disasters had they weathered, how many times had they picked through the rubble in the aftermath? If Aziraphale thought of him at all, for those first desperate hours, he thought only that they would find each other later, and hold each other up, and drink a memorial, as they had so many times before.

He'd forgotten, again, everything Crowley's apparent humanity entailed. He remembered in an instant like the fall of the executioner's axe, when he heard one of the villagers say that there was nothing left standing on the far slopes.

He might have run there. He might have flown, the darkness hiding his frantic wings. He might have willed himself across the distance in a heartbeat. It didn't matter, it was all too late. Crowley's cottage was no more than a heap of broken stone, the wisteria torn and tumbled, the garden roiled and ruined. Aziraphale cried his name, but he already knew, could see how completely the structure had collapsed, could sense no life, no spark within it. There had been no miracle here.

He searched anyway, lifting stone after stone, until he uncovered one cold and bloodless hand, and then his knees gave out, and he wept until dawn.

* * *

He didn't leave at once. He continued to give aid to the wounded and newly destitute. He helped them bury their dead. 

He buried Crowley. 

He held out hope, until the graves were dug, that this seeming death might spark a return to his true form, that the cloth-wrapped body Aziraphale could not bear to look at would fade into nothing, as happened to the mortal form of a demon or angel should they be discorporated, and Aziraphale would know that things had not gone so very far after all from the course they should be on.

But the graves were prepared, and the dead waited silently, and so they were buried under the pale January sun, and Aziraphale felt as if his soul had been ripped out of him and cast into some cold and lightless place.

He gathered his few belongings that had survived the quake. All of the bundles of wisteria had been crushed, except for one, the first Crowley had given him, and still the loveliest. He wrapped it in cloth and secured it in his case and left Sicily with no destination in mind other than _away_.


	2. Chapter 2

Habit drew Aziraphale back to London, eventually. Habit, and hope, battered but hanging on. Perhaps Crowley's human life and death had satisfied Hell. Perhaps he would soon return to Earth in his own form. If so, he'd surely remember his promise, and come to London.

Years passed. Aziraphale's orders kept coming. He did his distracted best, but even without Crowley to counterbalance his influence, he felt as though he accomplished very little. Humans were so complex and contrary, their lives so rarely able to be changed by a single blessing or curse; their will to choose was a bright blade that cut through all his efforts.

He finally took a chance, included a note in one of his reports that he had seen no activity from the demon Crowley for half a century, wondered (with studied offhandedness) if head office knew whether perhaps Hell had recalled him at last. He had no reply for some time, and then only a curt note to the effect that regardless of the demon's current status on Earth, Aziraphale was to remain alert for any infernal interference.

Aziraphale read and re-read the missive, trying to glean some additional meaning from it, some clue. It could mean, he supposed, that they knew Crowley would be returning. Or it could mean they had no idea what was going on either. Or that they had information they were unwilling to share with him...

London was a lonely place without Crowley. One day, he couldn't stand it anymore, and within a week, he'd packed up his lodgings and booked passage to the far-flung colonies of the New World. He didn't return to Europe for over fifteen years.

* * *

_Copenhagen, 1735_

Aziraphale heard his name first, felt his heart lift and swoop and quiver when the scholars of the Trinitatis spoke of _Herre Crowley's excellent work. _He was a glassmaker, and supplied vials and flasks to the natural philosophers. Some swift enquiries guided Aziraphale to a place of business that had survived the fire that had destroyed so much of the city. 

There was a boy in the shop itself, quick to invite him to inspect the glassware, knowledgeable with the eager intelligence of youth. When Aziraphale asked to speak with Herre Crowley, he was directed through a side-door and into a small glass-roofed shed attached to the main building.

He found Crowley stooping over a riot of geraniums, a dozen or more plants in elegantly blown glass vessels, their roots tracing intricacies through the dark soil. He was older than he had been in Sicily and had the pale complexion of a tradesman of comfortable means; his hair was not as long as it had been then, but long enough to be gathered loose at the nape of his neck with an elegant simplicity. He looked more like himself, more like Aziraphale was used to seeing him, at least until he glanced up questioningly, and his eyes were still honey-brown instead of vivid yellow.

Aziraphale swayed under his gaze, unprepared for the tumult of emotion that seized him. The grief, the joy, the longing, the dismay. There was still no recognition there, as Crowley began to frown.

"Can I be of some assistance?" he asked, his Danish smooth and careful, the voice of a man who'd had humble beginnings and worked hard to hide them. "Was my apprentice not out front—"

"No, no, I mean— yes, he was there, and very helpful too, a— a jolly good lad, I should say."

Crowley's mouth twitched, a sideways smile that only just wasn't a smirk.

"She's no lad," he said, "though she'll be pleased to hear you thought otherwise. So, it's me you're looking for, then?"

"_Yes_," Aziraphale breathed, a rush of emotion he could no more contain than he could keep the tears from his eyes.

Crowley straightened, stared, his eyes suddenly wide. He half-raised a hand, then seemed to recall himself, laid it on the bench instead.

"Have we met?" he asked, uncertain as he stared at Aziraphale's face. "I feel as though I— might have known you, once."

Hope stirred sluggishly in Aziraphale's breast.

"You did. We have. I mean to say—" Aziraphale forced himself to take a breath. "We met, a long time ago. I should like to renew our acquaintance, if you are amenable."

"Perhaps you'd have lunch with me?" Crowley offered, smiling now, clearly intrigued as he looked Aziraphale over. "I confess I've no recollection of our prior introduction, but I think perhaps I would like to be reminded."

* * *

It was a very nice lunch in Crowley's club, almost like old times, until Aziraphale started trying to explain to Crowley who he really was. He had, perhaps, thought that some great surge of understanding would flow through Crowley when he heard it, that this human version of his friend would instinctively recognise the truth of Aziraphale's claims. Instead, the warmth and curiosity on Crowley's face twisted swiftly into confusion, concern, wariness, and finally something painfully like hostility.

"It's a poor thing to take up a man's time with such an ill-conceived jest," Crowley snapped, as he took his leave and strode out of the club before they were even finished with the main course. "I suggest you find some other way to entertain yourself."

Aziraphale found that his own appetite had uncharacteristically deserted him. He left the rest of the lamb untouched on his plate and contrived to pay for the meal, even though it had been ordered on Crowley's account. He spent that night walking by the waterfront, feeling his stomach roll and turn like the currents and ripples, listening to the occasional cry of wakeful, mournful gulls.

He could, he supposed, remove Crowley's memory of their meeting, and try again, but every scrap of conscience in him squirmed at the thought. It had felt wrong in Sicily, when he'd hoped the attempt would fail. It felt worse now he knew it would succeed. Crowley's good opinion had always mattered to Aziraphale far more than it should; to force that opinion in his favour by playing with Crowley's mind was a betrayal he couldn't stomach. No, he'd made a mess of things, and if he was to fix them, he would have to do it with words and deeds.

* * *

He considered a dozen plans, some so convoluted they wouldn't have been out of place on the stage. He considered lying, saying it had all been a foolish notion, a moment of madness. He toyed with some tale of a wager or a game got out of hand. He mused on passing himself off as a wild-eyed poet who'd been speaking in metaphor.

But he had never been much good at dissembling. Especially not with Crowley.

At last, he took himself back to the shop late one evening. He slipped unnoticed past the apprentice, who was half-asleep and dreaming of running away to sea besides. He found Crowley in the outbuilding again, working patiently and delicately with the geraniums. He was grafting, Aziraphale saw, trying out new rootstock. There were detailed notes on a page beside him. His lantern was beginning to burn low; his eyes must be strained in the dim light.

Aziraphale let his wings unfold, their tips brushing the glass roof and the wooden walls. He snapped his fingers to summon white radiance into the small space. Crowley shot upright, mouth dropping open, eyes widening until they almost seemed to start from his head.

"I was telling the truth," Aziraphale said simply. "I'm sorry for making such a poor job of it."

It had been a long, long time since he'd shown a human - any human - what he really was. Not since before the fall of Babylon had he spread his wings for any other eyes than Crowley's. It was like a cold blade in his heart now to see such fear in those eyes (so different, still _him_) and such disbelief and awe in that familiar face. Crowley shouldn't look at him like that. Crowley should be teasing him good-naturedly for the state of his feathers, which were much like his hair, and refused to lie smooth and neat. But Crowley was human, here and now, and he looked upon an angel for the first time, and Aziraphale knew that all he saw was _glory_.

"I—" Crowley could barely speak, the words a whisper from a throat parched by shock. "What— what do you want with me?"

"To help you, if I can," Aziraphale replied. "To find out what's happened, why you're like this."

Crowley swallowed hard, tore his eyes away from Aziraphale, stared unseeing at his flowers.

"You said... you said I wasn't human."

"Yes."

"That I'm a _demon_."

"Yes."

Crowley shook his head, and Aziraphale saw the tears swimming in his eyes.

"No. That's not— that can't be— I'm not a godly man, Lord knows, but I've never... I've tried to live right. All my life, I've tried—"

"Yes, you have," Aziraphale said desperately, heartbroken by the shattered look on his face. "Ever since the Beginning. You're not... you're not _evil_. That's not what I meant."

"Then what am I?"

"My dear friend," Aziraphale replied, with helpless honesty.

Crowley took a swift, ragged breath, eyes flying to Aziraphale's, and though they were still too bright and wet, there was a spark of longing in their depths that called to the embers of Aziraphale's heart.

"Come inside," Crowley said, stepping away from the bench, taking a hesitant step towards Aziraphale and the door. "I— I've some wine. We can sit and talk. You can tell me... you can tell me who I'm supposed to be."

* * *

It took more than one night, and considerably more than one bottle of wine, for even someone of Crowley's intelligence and imagination to come to grips with what Aziraphale had to tell him. He had so many questions, Aziraphale could hardly finish each answer. And at first, it seemed like that was a good thing, like Crowley was seizing back the missing parts of himself with both hands.

But then the rot crept in.

Aziraphale failed to recognise its initial harbingers, though they troubled him on their own account. Crowley's initial fervour turned into something like obsession. He read every book and manuscript Aziraphale could provide for him, every arcane religious text, every work of prophecy. He slept fitfully, troubled by dreams that neither of them could interpret: maybe fragments of memory, maybe just images conjured up by his racing thoughts.

There was a closeness between them now, but it was fevered, monomaniacal, nothing like the easy way they'd talked for centuries. Crowley had always drunk too much when his mind wouldn't let him sit silent, but as a human he had to bear the toll of it, and there were times when Aziraphale had to intercede to ease the strain on his poor liver. Crowley asked him to simply miracle him sober so he could continue drinking, and Aziraphale refused, disturbed by the request even though it was nothing they hadn't done for themselves in the past. After that Crowley began to usher Aziraphale out earlier in the evening, so he could continue to drink alone.

As the weeks turned into months, Crowley seemed to lose interest in the life he'd built for himself. His shop had gaps in its stock. He did not fulfill his orders promptly, and his buyers turned to other tradesmen, and he didn't much seem to care. The geraniums wilted in their shed; his notes collected a thin layer of dust. His apprentice disguised herself as a boy and stowed away on a ship heading for Portugal, and Crowley didn't even realise she was gone for two days. 

(Aziraphale took care of it, blessing her to be safe on the seas and from the prying eyes of anyone who might question her disguise. Many decades later, he'd hear stories about the dashing young captain who'd cut such a swathe through the Caribbean, and much speculation about where he vanished to after, and what his connection was with a certain wealthy spinster who seemed to inherit all his possessions later in life, and whose past was a fog of mystery.)

Crowley spent too much money on wine and on books, volumes that Aziraphale had refused to purchase because he knew they were full of nonsense. Aziraphale began to realise that he was Crowley's only company. He'd led a lonely life before, it was true, but now he seemed dismissive of his trade contacts and his handful of friends.

"What's the point?" he asked when Aziraphale tried to delicately raise the question. "None of it's real, is it?"

"All the same—"

"And I'll be leaving it all behind, won't I? When we work out how to fix me?"

To that, Aziraphale had no argument, but something settled in his chest like a heavy weight, and after that, he began to observe Crowley more closely, and he didn't like what he saw. Crowley's questions took on an edge. They were the questions he'd always asked - about God's plan, about the justice of human suffering, about the righteousness of Heaven and the evil of Hell - but now they had a bitter, vicious edge to them. This Crowley couldn't step back or accept the great tapestry of human experience, not when he was himself a thread that was beginning to fray.

"Why did you let it happen?" he demanded, voice ragged and too loud, the day after the neighbour's two children were trampled by an out-of-control horse in the street. "Why didn't you stop it?"

"I didn't know," Aziraphale protested, weak with his own sorrow. "I was on the other side of the city."

"You couldn't have— protected them? Put a blessing on them?"

"If I'd known what was to come, but it's not like I can forsee the future—"

"Why not do it anyway? Just in case?"

"My dear, you don't know what you're asking. To hand out blessings to every child that crosses my path—"

Crowley's face twisted into something ugly.

"Get out," he snarled, and Aziraphale left.

Two days later, Crowley's anger had simmered down, but there was a bleakness, a bitterness in its place.

"What about the plague?" he said, not long after Aziraphale arrived.

"Which one?" Aziraphale asked, thoughtlessly, and Crowley's expression darkened.

"When I was seventeen," he replied coldly. "It came to the city from Russia. Took my parents, my brothers. Nearly took me, but for some reason, I survived."

There was something haunted and horrible in his eyes, a too-intimate acquaintance with the handiwork of Pestilence, a trauma that had never healed.

"Oh— my dear, I—"

"You didn't know. Yes. You've made that plain. For an angel, there seems to be a lot you don't know."

"They don't consult me on policy decisions," Aziraphale whispered miserably.

Once, Crowley's face would have softened at that. He'd always needled Aziraphale into either defending the actions of Heaven or admitting that he could not, but he'd never needed it explained that Aziraphale had no influence over them either way. He'd been all too aware of the inevitability of their masters' plans.

This Crowley gave him a look of disgust, and though he didn't tell Aziraphale to leave, Aziraphale went anyway.

That night he flew to the top of the Round Tower, hidden from mortal sight, and looked at the stars. Crowley made lenses for the observatory - or he had, before his recent apathy. It hurt Aziraphale almost more than he could bear that he'd come so close to his beloved stars without ever learning their names.

A week later, he went to Crowley's house, determined to do whatever he could to undo the damage he'd wrought. He found it shut up, and for a terrible moment he feared that Crowley had left the city without telling him, but when he waved open the locks and ventured inside, he could sense a living presence.

He found Crowley weeping, kneeling by his bed as if he'd been praying, hair in disarray, nightshirt creased and sweat-dark. When Aziraphale rushed to kneel at his side, Crowley flinched away, and the broken thing in Aziraphale's chest shattered into even smaller pieces.

"I'm sorry," he said, voice trembling. "This is— this is all my fault."

"Yes," Crowley replied, hoarse and tremulous, but there was no accusation in the word, just a bottomless pit of grief. He managed a ghost of his teasing smile, the slightest of wry tilts to his lips. "It is, rather."

Aziraphale reached out slowly, giving him time to move away. Crowley permitted him to lay a hand on his shoulder, closed his eyes and leaned his head towards the touch.

"I understand," Crowley whispered. "I understand why you tried. But it's— I can't— I can't do this anymore, Aziraphale."

Aziraphale's stomach lurched with fear and desperation.

"Can you take it away?" Crowley asked without opening his eyes. "All of it, everything you've told me... can you make me forget?"

"Crowley—"

His eyes flashed open, deep gold in the dim light of the shuttered room. His hand came up to grasp Aziraphale's, lifting it from his shoulder, bringing it to his lips.

"Please?"

Aziraphale felt the first of Crowley's tears splash onto his hand, felt his own eyes overflowing with the agony of it.

"Is that what you want? Truly?"

Crowley nodded, pressing Aziraphale's hand to his cheek, turning his head to press his lips to it a second time.

"But not you," he whispered against Aziraphale's skin. "I don't want to forget you."

Aziraphale couldn't stop his fingers from curving against Crowley's jaw, stroking the damp skin.

"I can't untangle it like that," he explained brokenly. "If I take away your memories of these past months, it all has to go."

Crowley shook his head, a sharp, abortive movement, clung to Aziraphale's hand.

"Then say you'll be here afterwards," he pleaded. "Introduce yourself to me again. Let us start over. Say you'll be my friend."

"Oh, my dear," Aziraphale whispered, and drew him into his arms, and laid a kiss on his sweat-damp forehead. "I will always be your friend."

It was hard, to take away so much time without doing harm, without leaving a gap that would draw at Crowley's curiosity until it drove him mad all over again. It took patience, and finesse, and a steadiness that Aziraphale had to force upon himself until he was exhausted, as Crowley sank into slumber, went limp in his arms.

At last, Aziraphale lifted him, laid him in the bed (the sheets clean and fresh with a snap of shaking fingers), opened the window to let in the late morning breeze. He smoothed Crowley's hair across his pillow and wiped away the tracks of tears from his cheeks. He gathered up the books of prophecy and apocrypha, miracling them to his own apartment. He cleared away the empty wine bottles and the detritus of too many months forgetting what it was to be human. He couldn't do much about the missing glassware or the absent apprentice, but he stepped into the shed and brought the geraniums back to life, waved away the dust that had settled on the workbench. He took one of the plants, the one with the purple and white petals that Crowley had been tending the first time they met, and tucked it under his arm as he returned to the bedchamber.

"When you awaken," he said softly, sitting on the bed by Crowley's side, drinking in the sight of his dear face, now peaceful again, the torment gone, "you will have dreamed gently and sweetly. The last few months, you've been melancholy, a darkness on your thoughts, but it's gone now. It won't take you long to win back the trust of your clients. And I think, if you ask them, the gentlemen at the Round Tower will be delighted to let you look through the lenses you've ground for them, and teach you the names of the stars."

He bent and pressed one last kiss to Crowley's forehead. Crowley stirred, and Aziraphale hurried to his feet. He cradled the geranium in its glass vessel as he let himself out and locked the door behind him.

The next boat out of Copenhagen was bound for Athens, so that was where he went.


	3. Chapter 3

_Cyclades, 1793_

Gabriel's visit caught him unprepared, but he wasn't exactly surprised. Aziraphale straightened from where he had been leaning on the harbour railing, made an attempt at a polite smile. The expression felt unfamiliar. Had he really smiled so little in the past fifty years?

"Aziraphale," Gabriel said, like his very name was distasteful. "What _do_ you think you're doing?"

"God's work, I rather thought," Aziraphale replied. He almost winced at his own temerity, but the numbness that had permeated him for so long left him too dull to care. "We are supposed to bless and guide them—"

"Yes, but every child on this dreary backwater island, Aziraphale?"

"One never knows which of them will go on to great things."

"You've used three times as many miracles and blessings in the last decade as most angels do in a century," Gabriel snapped. "Enough is enough. Unless you really believe that this fishing village is so full of virtue?"

Aziraphale looked out over the bay. At the children running to join their parents bringing in the day's catch, the siblings helping each other mend nets, the mothers who hadn't died of childbed sickness. They would all live long lives free of disaster. What they did with those lives was their own decision.

"I see much of grace in them," he said.

Gabriel scowled at him, but for the first time in more than five thousand years, Aziraphale didn't care what he thought.

"You're to go to Paris," Gabriel went on brusquely. "Talk them out of all this revolution nonsense."

"Yes, I'd heard about that. Getting a bit carried away, but it's not such a bad idea, is it? No more kings. Those chaps in New York seem to be doing all right for themselves—"

"Don't be so ridiculous." Gabriel turned his back on the harbour as if the sight disgusted him, focused all of his disdain on Aziraphale. "They're too gullible and argumentative to rule themselves. Take away the authority figure and their whole society would collapse. You don't want that, do you?"

"Of course not."

"Then _go_ to _Paris_. And cut back on the frivolous miracles."

Gabriel vanished without another word. Aziraphale stood there for a long time afterwards, watching the village come together in the business of feeding themselves and their families. They had a king, in theory, but he was far away, and meant little to their hopes and dreams. Aziraphale had wandered from island to island throughout the Aegean Sea, avoiding the cities he'd once taken such joy in, trying not to count off the years of a human lifespan, failing utterly.

He went to Paris. He made a poor job of it, though he did do his best when he saw exactly what the revolutionaries were getting up to now they were in power. The paranoia and cruelty made him heartsick, made him want to lose himself again in those little villages where life sometimes pretended to be simple. He'd always loved Paris, loved its food and its wine, but he rarely found it in him to enjoy eating, these days. And he was afraid to drink alone; afraid he might not be able to stop, that he'd eventually sober up and find that years had passed.

It perhaps wasn't entirely surprising when they threw him in the Bastille. He sat in chains for hours, and considered letting the humans discorporate him. _What were you thinking, Aziraphale, being so careless? Well, Gabriel, I was thinking that I wouldn't want to frivolously save my own life, now would I?_

Maybe it would be good for him, to go back to Heaven for a while. Maybe getting away from this too-human existence would soothe the weary ache that seemed permanently lodged in his chest. 

But he thought of Crowley, of the possibility that he might return to his true self and come looking for him, and changed his mind. He walked out of the Bastille and left Paris behind without a backward glance.

* * *

_Vienna, 1801_

He arrived in Vienna at the turn of the century, just as Beethoven was making a splash. He'd missed Mozart and most of the Bachs, which saddened him, but the musical scene was so vibrant and exciting, he felt a flutter of interest and delight for the first time in more than half a century.

He wondered if that was some sort of portent, when he found himself watching Crowley play the pianoforte in a small, select salon held by an influential family. And for the first time, Aziraphale wondered if there was something guiding him, some whim of God or eddy of fate that kept washing him up at Crowley's door.

Crowley was a virtuoso performer, all lithe exuberance and exquisite timing, intense concentration and a bright, brilliant joy unshielded on his expressive face. If Aziraphale had never known him before that night, he might have lost his heart to the sheer unbridled passion of the performance. The drawing room was decked with roses, blood-red blooms bursting from porcelain vases, single stems laid artfully on tables and mantles. There was a bowl of them on top of the grand piano, and Crowley wore one in his buttonhole, almost glowing against his dark coat.

In all their centuries before, Crowley had never shown any interest in making music, though he'd enjoyed listening to it many times, often in Aziraphale's company. To see him like this, so blazing bright, so gleeful and certain in his skill, so contained and yet overflowing... Aziraphale wanted to fly back to Eden and hand him a harp and beg him to make the strings sing.

He went back, again and again, as often as he was invited. He couldn't help himself. The music lifted his heart; Crowley's brilliance and easy confidence were a balm on his soul, so different from that last wretched morning in Copenhagen. Aziraphale drank in every smile and flourish, the way those golden-brown eyes darted over the crowd in delight. He kept his distance, made no attempt to approach.

He never expected the courteous touch on his elbow during the obligatory mingling after one of the performances, the smile directed directly at him, the eyes seeking his own.

"I've seen you here every night," Crowley said. He wore a silk cravat and a high-waisted tailcoat and his hands were swathed in gloves so fine they were almost gossamer. "Dare I flatter myself that you come for me?"

Aziraphale stuttered and stammered something about Crowley's talent on the keys, his flair for performance, and made his excuses, and left the gathering.

Two days later he was back, as if a fishhook had settled in his throat, pulling him remorselessly to its point of origin. This time when he felt the tremor of someone stepping to his side, he was at least a fraction more prepared. 

"Fell," Aziraphale said, when pressed for an introduction. The alias sat poorly on his shoulders, but it would raise no eyebrows and spark no questions. "Do you compose?" he went on, trying not to stare at Crowley, trying not to devour him with eyes as famished as his soul. "Your own works, I mean?"

"Not a note," Crowley replied with a laugh. "I love to play, but I don't seem to have an original melody in my bones. Fortunately I'm well-supplied with the genius of others. Have you heard Hummel perform?"

"I confess I have not."

"You must!" He'd never seen Crowley so alight, so unburdened. It was hypnotic; it was addictive; it was desperately beautiful. "In fact, a friend of mine has invited me to a small performance in a few days' time. Perhaps you'd care to join me?"

Aziraphale could feel himself blushing, could feel himself hesitating, could feel himself about to walk open-eyed into disaster again. And all the same, he said, "I would like that very much."

* * *

This time, when Crowley kissed him, Aziraphale understood that it was coming, had read the signs in his hands and his face, the softness of honey eyes lingering on lips and cheek and throat. He'd intended to find a way to put some distance between them, but he'd left it too long, left it too late, always wanting just one more evening together. They were about to say goodnight after one of those, Aziraphale gathering his hat and gloves to take his leave from Crowley's apartment, when Crowley caught him by the wrist, and then the waist, and then ran soft fingertips along his jaw, and then bent to capture his mouth with a little indrawn breath of anticipation.

Aziraphale meant to push him away. He'd swear before all the Host that he'd meant to end it at once, even knowing the pain it would cause Crowley.

But he remembered Sicily, and a cold hand among the stones, and he remembered Copenhagen, and Crowley, tear-streaked, kissing his palm, and he remembered five thousand years of companionship and the comfort of being _known_. Just a few weeks here with Crowley and the colour had begun to creep back into the world, the warmth back into Aziraphale's veins. This physical intimacy was surely a poor substitute for what he truly craved, but he was so riven with loneliness, so torn apart with despair, that he found himself pulling Crowley closer, surrendering gladly to his eager embrace.

It was a mistake, of course; of course it was a mistake. But Crowley's hair felt like silk between his fingers, and Crowley's mouth was warm and needy on his skin, and whatever Aziraphale told himself, the truth was that he _liked_ it, the way Crowley whispered heartfelt words he'd never say out loud, the way they breathed raggedly against one another, the way this human form of his could give so wholly of itself to another.

The truth was that he found himself wishing it was the _real _Crowley who lay with him afterwards, murmuring softness against his neck, running worshipful fingers over his chest and stomach. Wishing those eyes were as gold and glimmering as they should be, wishing that smile was weighted with all their centuries together, wishing that Crowley would call him _angel_, would call him by his true name. Wishing they'd found a way to do this long, long ago. 

Wondering if they would ever have the chance now, or if this pale echo was all he could hope for.

* * *

For the first time in a very long time, Aziraphale could almost call himself happy. Vienna sparkled like the jewel in the crown of the new century. Humanity here strove for beauty and transcendence in their music, in their art, and though there were always the uglier sides to life, it was easy to believe that people were moving on an upward trajectory, that things would get better. It grieved Aziraphale to see the consequences inflicted on those who loved and lived in ways deemed transgressive, but - some might say miraculously - his own association with Crowley never drew undue notice, and compared to living with the fear of Hell's wrath, it was easy sailing. 

Years slipped past like days, an easy rhythm of simple human pleasures and simple human hopes. He even learned to sleep occasionally, with Crowley by his side, and the rest of the time lay quiet through the night, thinking of nothing but Crowley's warmth and lazy heartbeat.

"I'd marry you, you know," Crowley said once, barely a breath against Aziraphale's skin in the dark. "If it were permitted for men like us."

Something in Aziraphale's chest twisted and broke and came out as nearly a sob. Crowley gathered him close, whispering soft comfort, and maybe it would have been enough, if he weren't calling Aziraphale by a name that felt falser with every passing year, reminding him that none of this was truly real.

When Napoleon took Vienna in 1805, it wasn't much to write home about, the city preferring to regard these invaders with polite interest, the soldiers deciding that the battle was already lost and therefore best avoided altogether. Nonetheless, it jolted Aziraphale out of his reverie, forced him to pay attention to how things were changing on the continent. He didn't much like what he saw, not least because he felt a creeping certainty that soon he'd receive orders to intercede. It was foolish, he thought, reading the newspapers with new fervour, listening more carefully to conversation in the salons; these piecemeal wars were all about territory and politics and power. They were utterly human and utterly irrelevant to either Heaven or Hell. He hoped that this time perhaps Above and Below could leave well enough alone.

He hoped in vain. The letter arrived on ivory paper with a watermark of finely detailed wings and a seal styled as a pair of gates. He was to go to London and aid the war efforts, even though the British victory at Trafalgar suggested they were doing quite well for themselves unassisted. There was no explanation as to why one side had been picked over the other. Perhaps, Aziraphale thought bitterly, Gabriel resented the weakening of the Holy Roman Empire, which he'd always taken credit for.

At least it would mean taking Crowley away from the unsettled continent, but in that he hit a snag.

"_London_?" Crowley demanded, his voice a perfect blend of incredulity and bewilderment. "Why on Earth would we want to move to London?"

"You don't fancy a change of scene? I mean, with everything that's going on in the world—"

Crowley shook his head, half-laughing, half-exasperated. He reached over their breakfast table to put his hand over Aziraphale's.

"You worry too much. The French have no reason to make themselves unpleasant here. We'll be fine."

"It's my family," Aziraphale blurted out.

Crowley blinked, amusement becoming concern and a deep compassion that made the lie burn on Aziraphale's tongue.

"You've heard from them? After all this time?"

(There was a story there, one Aziraphale had crafted solely as an excuse not to have to talk about his fictional past, but had found echoing with odd half-truths when he spoke of how badly he had fitted in at home, how little he desired contact with his family now, how domineering his non-existent parents had been.)

"There's a small matter of an inheritance," Aziraphale said, scrambling desperately for an excuse. "A— a property in London."

"Well, if you need to go over to sort it out, by all means, but we hardly need to uproot ourselves and—"

"It's rather important to me." Aziraphale took his hand away from Crowley's, turning his eyes to the tablecloth to hide his shame. He lied to Crowley every day, in some small way or another, whether in answering to his not-name or avoiding some innocent question. It never got easier. "I'd always hoped... well, I wanted to open a bookshop there, you see, but they wouldn't allow—"

"A bookshop?" A snort from Crowley. "You want to take on a trade? _You_?"

"It was all I wanted," Aziraphale said to his napkin, voice softening with the truth behind the lie. 

It had been Crowley's idea, even, back when Aziraphale was enthusiastically collecting Shakespeare's folios and complaining about finding appropriate storage for them. Aziraphale had scorned the suggestion, knowing Heaven would never approve such an indulgence, but he'd thought about it on and off, coming to like the notion more and more with every passing decade. Even after he'd lost Crowley and everything had begun to unravel, he'd found himself dwelling on the idea of a place that was truly _his_, a place he could return to, a place where he could keep the things that he treasured safe from harm.

He would never have thought to pursue such a dream now if it meant leaving Crowley, but he had no choice: to London he must go, and he couldn't say if it would be for one year or ten.

_I will lose him for this,_ Aziraphale thought in quiet despair. _And he won't even understand why—_

Crowley's chair scraped on the floor as he moved around the table, within arm's reach. The backs of his fingers brushed Aziraphale's cheek. Crowley sighed, and there was frustration in the sound, but there was fondness in equal measure.

"Let me think about it," Crowley said. He leaned in, kissed Aziraphale briefly at the corner of his mouth, rose to his feet before Aziraphale could respond. "It's just... very sudden. Give me some time, all right?"

Aziraphale stared after him as he left the room, hands gripping each other so tightly he had to force them to relax, and felt the smallest flicker of hope.

After a week, it was fanned to a breathless flame when Crowley said, casually but with a soft smile, "I suppose I could spare the time to show those English music-lovers what they've been missing out on."

* * *

_London, 1806_

Of course, then Aziraphale had to actually find a property in London and arrange things so that its provenance matched the story he'd told, which turned out to be somewhat more difficult than he'd anticipated. He went on ahead, leaving Crowley to wrap up their affairs in Vienna, and hoping he'd have enough time to get things set up. Aziraphale breathed a sigh of relief when he found a nice little place in Soho, with its theatres and its music halls and its day-to-day vivacity, and if it was perhaps not the most genteel district in the city, well, he thought Crowley might rather like its grubby edges.

They took an apartment near St James's Park. Crowley grumbled about the weather (not that Vienna was much better endowed in that regard, at least in Aziraphale's opinion) but he took well to London society, though his English was awkward at first. It was beyond strange to hear him struggle with a language he'd once spoken with the skill to outwit Shakespeare and Marlowe. 

If he improved rapidly after their arrival, until only his accent betrayed him, well, that was surely Crowley's clever mind at work, nothing miraculous about it.

The bookshop was small, but more than adequate for Aziraphale's needs. He loved the way the light fell through its glass skylight, easing away the darkness of the English winter. He had his books and papers brought to him from the places he'd left them over the decades - a trunk in a quiet, forgotten attic here, a crate kept safe in the cellar of a tavern there. Opening them was like recognising old friends, remembering faces he'd half forgotten.

Not all of the memories were good. The books of prophecy from Copenhagen were like a silent accusation. And there were other things, mementos from centuries past, objects he had no business possessing, that anyone with a sharp enough eye would frown over. Crowley was very sharp-eyed, and had never been afraid to ask questions. Aziraphale had the workers build him a small room, not much more than a closet, and hide its entrance behind one of the shelves, and that was where he kept those items he could neither bear to part with nor risk Crowley seeing.

On the day the shop first opened, Aziraphale realised belatedly the flaw in his plan, which was that people now actually wanted to _buy_ his precious books. He was in quite a state by lunchtime, when the bell jingled, and Crowley walked in with a smile, a bouquet of red roses, and a small package of chocolates.

"So how are you finding life as a purveyor of fine literary volumes?" Crowley asked, the smile becoming a grin, eyes flashing with mirth as he took in Aziraphale's scowl. "I'm sure you've sold half your collection already."

Aziraphale glared, but it was hard to pretend to be irritated when Crowley was holding out the flowers to him, as eager and hopeful as if they'd only just met.

"You should put a piano in here," he said a few minutes later, after Aziraphale had placed the roses in a vase and shown him around the shop. "There's space for it right there."

"Why would I put a piano in a bookshop, dearest?"

"So I can play it, of course. If this is where you'll be spending your time from now on, I may as well get comfortable."

Three days later, Aziraphale had a small grand piano delivered, its dark wood lacquered to a glassy perfection, its ivories glimmering like pearls. The stool that accompanied it was padded in plush red velvet and had serpents coiling up its mahogany legs, their clever faces peeping out from under the seat. Aziraphale had no talent for making music himself, but when he tested the keys, the clarion perfection of their sound brought a smile to his face. 

He left a single red rose under the lid.

* * *

For five years, Aziraphale did everything Heaven asked of him. He'd never been so diligent. Whenever his orders arrived, he hurried to guide politicians and generals, to bless ships, to pray for soldiers. It was hard sometimes to explain his absences to Crowley, painful to lay the lies like paving slabs across the soft soil of their shared life, but Aziraphale did what he had to do, and watched the British Empire expand.

So it felt like nothing short of unfair when Gabriel and Sandalphon walked into the shop, false smiles plastered on their faces, eyes flat with disapproval. Crowley was playing Beethoven's famous lilting sonata, his back to the door, but he saw how Aziraphale stiffened; his hands slowed at once, the piano fell silent. He turned to look at their visitors, and Aziraphale hurried forward, desperate to avert disaster, terribly afraid it was already too late.

"Gabriel! What a pleasant surprise! I was— as a matter of fact, I was just about to go out - would you mind terribly if we walked and talked, as it were?"

Gabriel's eyes went to Crowley, frowning from the piano stool, and Aziraphale saw the unmistakable contempt, and his heart froze solid in his chest.

But Gabriel smiled his too-broad smile and said, "Of course, Aziraphale, lead the way."

Crowley started to get up; Aziraphale waved him back, unable to look him in the eye.

"Would you watch the shop for me?" he pleaded, taking his coat and hat from the rack with trembling fingers. "I won't be long."

Even without looking, he could sense Crowley's tension, knew that his gaze would be flicking between the three of them, seeking answers, seeking the reason for Aziraphale's discomfort.

"Are you sure?" he asked, his accent coming through strongly on the vowels, betraying his concern.

"Of course," Aziraphale replied, with a false smile of his own, and ushered his unwelcome visitors out through the door and away down the street. 

"To what do I owe the—"

"Cut the crap, Aziraphale," Gabriel said, the smile gone. "You know why we're here."

It was dangerous to play dumb, but perhaps more dangerous to guess at what Gabriel already knew.

"I'm afraid I don't," Aziraphale replied, striving for the kind of polite worry he'd have shown on similar occasions in the past. "Is there a problem with my work? I thought things were going rather well—"

"Yes, yes, you've done your duty. For once." Gabriel's face was stern. "Which is the only reason you aren't in more trouble. Did you think we wouldn't notice you fraternising with a human?"

_Human,_ Aziraphale thought, and didn't know if he was relieved or dismayed. _Not demon, then. You don't recognise him. You don't know about him._

"I don't see the problem," he replied with a bravado he didn't feel. "If it doesn't interfere with my duties on Earth—"

"Have you forgotten the Nephilim?" Sandalphon demanded, scowling. He'd taken a personal interest in eliminating those hybrid children of angels and humans, Aziraphale remembered.

"Really, Sandalphon," he blustered, "if that's what's worrying you, you need to learn a bit more about human biology, I can _assure_ you it's not a problem—"

"But what _is_ a problem," Gabriel interrupted insistently, "is you behaving like you're _one of them_, Aziraphale. This building of yours, this library—"

"It's a bookshop, actually, I use it to spread righteous texts to the humans—"

"—whatever you call it, I don't care!" Gabriel snapped, with a silencing gesture. "It isn't right for an angel to have so many _possessions_, to get so _attached_."

"It's necessary to blend in with them," Aziraphale argued, knowing he would lose, compelled to try all the same. "They find it strange if someone has no history, no roots. It makes them distrust me. Since I opened the bookshop I've found it far easier to guide them along from day to day—"

"Enough excuses." Gabriel glared at him, his eyes almost glowing. "Frankly, Aziraphale, it's my opinion that you've been down here too long. I wanted to recall you."

A deadening cold seeped out of Aziraphale's chest, into his limbs.

"However," Gabriel went on, "you _have_ done good work here. And since you do seem to have a knack for cosying up to the humans, we may as well put that to use."

Aziraphale's lips were half-numb with dread. He couldn't feel his fingers.

"What— what do you mean?"

"We've found a very bright young man up in Glasgow, lots of potential. He could be a saint, one day, with the right guidance. He's just signed up to become a missionary. He'll be arriving in London in a few days' time, ready to board a ship to Guinea. You're to go with him."

Aziraphale had to swallow twice before he could speak.

"For how long?"

"Oh, for as long as it takes," Gabriel said. "As long as it takes to make sure his soul is ours. Might be his whole life, who can say?"

Aziraphale searched his eyes for malice, for spite, but all he saw was what he always saw: that Gabriel thought him barely competent, in constant need of micromanagement. There was no awareness there of how this would hurt Aziraphale, no understanding of what would be destroyed. He saw an angel who had grown too comfortable, too indolent, and he dealt with it with a good hard shove, and considered himself a magnanimous boss.

It didn't make it any less cruel.

"I'll—" Aziraphale managed, fighting to keep his voice from breaking. "I'll need a little time to— to make preparations—"

"The boat leaves in five days, Aziraphale," Gabriel replied with a finality like a falling blade. "Be on it." He cast a single pointed glance back towards the shop. "Alone."

* * *

There was no way to explain it, no excuse that would suffice. From the moment he stumbled back into the shop and Crowley leapt to his feet with a flood of questions, Aziraphale felt it all splinter apart. If he left without a word, he'd hurt Crowley more than he could bear, but telling him the truth would destroy him. He couldn't explain that Gabriel would think nothing of having Crowley killed, if he believed Aziraphale needed that extra kick back into line. He couldn't take away Crowley's memory, even if he'd wanted to, even if he'd thought it permissible - it had been almost ten years now, and too much of Crowley's life was wound up with him. He'd been stupid, selfish, and desperately irresponsible to allow himself this association, and now Crowley would suffer for it, and he couldn't even tell him why.

And so he tried to edge his way through half-truths and evasions, and Crowley's dismay turned to disbelief, and then to anger.

"You can't be serious! You're out of your mind!" he snarled, pacing the shop, eyes fever-bright. "A missionary? _You?_ Just— woke up today and decided—?" He was so agitated he almost collided with a bookshelf, had to throw out a hand to steady himself. "Tell me what's really going on! Who were those men? What did they want? Why did they call you—"

"Don't," Aziraphale pleaded, because if he heard Crowley call him by his real name right here and now he would _break_, and he didn't know if he would ever find all the pieces again. "Please, dearest, I know it's hard—"

"It isn't _hard_, it's _incomprehensible_!" Crowley rounded on him, hands clenching into fists at his sides. "I've always known you had secrets, that there were things you weren't telling me, but surely by now you _trust_ me—"

"It isn't a matter of trust," Aziraphale whispered, closing his eyes against the pain behind Crowley's wrath. "I have to go. I can't explain. There's nothing else to say."

He waited, and wasn't surprised when the next thing he heard was the door opening and then slamming shut.

* * *

The next five days brought no comfort, no reprieve. Crowley vacillated between angry questions and desperate pleas. He grew pale and drawn as Aziraphale hurried through the process of shutting up the shop, packing a trunk. They slept in separate beds - although Aziraphale didn't actually sleep, and for once he didn't think Crowley did, either - and took their meals in silence because anything else would end with one of them storming away from the table.

The last day was the worst. Crowley abandoned all pretence of calm, every shred of dignity, begged Aziraphale to stay as if he were begging for his life. Aziraphale had to leave their apartment, fleeing to the shop and spending the night sitting by the sheet-covered piano, staring sightlessly at the book-lined walls.

He arrived at the docks before dawn had fully broken, the chilly half-light casting everything into a dreary monochrome. Two sailors took his trunk aboard, and Aziraphale stood for a moment by the gangway, looking at the foggy warehouses, as if he was waiting for something, though he didn't know what.

He found out when a carriage careened out of a side-street, horses skittering to a halt almost in front of him. Crowley half-fell at his feet, had him in his arms before Aziraphale could even open his mouth, and no, he couldn't do this, he couldn't bear it if Crowley started to plead with him again...

But Crowley just crushed him close, face buried in Aziraphale's neck, shoulders shaking.

"I'll be here," he said, his voice as broken as Aziraphale's heart. "I'll be waiting. For however long— just come back to me, please. I'll wait right here. I'll make sure nothing happens to your books. Just—" 

Aziraphale took Crowley's head in his hands, raised him up and kissed the words away, because he couldn't even guess when he'd be back, and he wouldn't lie, not this time, not now.

"I'll write to you," he promised instead, voice weak with misery. Crowley half-laughed, bleak and mirthless. "I will."

"I know you will," Crowley whispered, closing his eyes, leaning his forehead against Aziraphale's. "And I'll write back. And when you come back, I'll be waiting."

Aziraphale kissed him one last time, tasting the salt of their mingled tears, and then he tore himself away, and went aboard the ship. He let them lead him straight to his cabin; he couldn't stand on the deck and watch Crowley watch him leave.

* * *

The missionary was eager and determined, but he had no qualities that made him stand out from the crowd, nothing to justify Heaven's personal interest. Aziraphale hated himself for thinking like that, he who'd always believed in the importance of every soul on the planet, but hating himself was better than hating the man for something that wasn't his fault. 

Better than letting himself think that should the missionary succumb prematurely to some tropical fever, he'd surely go straight through the pearly gates, and could even Gabriel complain about that?

But Aziraphale protected him, and guided him, and the years slipped away.

He wrote to Crowley. It couldn't be often, not when they were trekking through miles of pathless jungle, when paper and ink were scarce resources, but he wrote whenever he could, and he ensured that his letters always miraculously reached London.

Crowley wrote back less often - or rather, Aziraphale received fewer letters from him. He had no way of knowing if that was by Crowley's choice, or if most of them were lost on the way, though he suspected the latter, since the ones he did receive often spoke of topics as if Crowley had written about them before. He treasured the ones that made it to him. He wept sometimes when Crowley, seeming unable to hold himself back, poured his heart onto the paper. He never begged for Aziraphale to return, not again, but he didn't need to: it was there in every line, every word, every dot of ink.

Aziraphale wrote of the work they were doing, of the people they met, of the strange and exotic plants, of the animals, of the music. He dared not bare his heart. He dared not write _I miss you, I miss you like a part of me has been cut away, oh come to me, come to me my love, at least then we'd be in exile together—_

And the years slipped away.

When there was an unusually long period with no correspondence from Crowley, Aziraphale tried not to worry. They'd been in difficult terrain for over six months; perhaps the mail simply wasn't getting through. Lying awake in the night under white canvas, listening to the endless cacophony of the jungle, he wondered miserably if Crowley had finally grown tired of waiting for him, if he'd moved on with his life. He knew he should hope for that, if he truly loved him. He should pray that Crowley had healed from the terrible wound Aziraphale had dealt him. That he might even love someone else, now.

He tried, he really did.

Two years without a word from Crowley. Fifteen since Aziraphale had left England. Despite himself, he thought of slipping away from his charge just for a little while, of unfurling his wings to fly back to London just long enough to find out—

And then the missionary took sick with some lingering malady that Aziraphale couldn't seem to heal. Despite his own selfish heart, he fought for the man's life, kept him going for months longer than the locals predicted. And in the end, he died all the same, and with his last breath, he thanked Aziraphale, and it left him a sobbing wreck for a day and a night.

The envelope was in his travel gear when he finally set about the process of breaking camp. A commendation; a gold star. The missionary had gone where he was supposed to be, and his death, Aziraphale read with shock and anger and a terrible weary understanding, was preordained. All exactly according to plan. Aziraphale had performed in an exemplary fashion.

There were no further instructions. No warnings to stay away from London. And so Aziraphale fled to the coast, and took passage on the first ship he could find that would take him home.

He was too late, and he couldn't even find it in him to be surprised, when his leaden feet dragged him to Crowley's grave. The influenza had burned through the city two years ago. Aziraphale had laid blessings on Crowley before he left, to protect him, to grant him long life, but Pestilence herself must have been stalking the streets during that terrible winter, must have demanded her due and taken her toll.

The shop was just as he'd left it, though dusty, except that it was clear the piano had been kept in tune, had been played. Aziraphale considered abandoning the whole place, just turning his back on it all, but he couldn't do it, not when there were echoes of Crowley in every corner. Not when Crowley had guarded it for him for so long.

Some months after he reopened, he took delivery of a number of packages: Crowley's things, it emerged, or at least, the ones that Crowley had deemed worth leaving to him.

One of the boxes was full of Aziraphale's letters, each one worn with much re-reading. But still more precious, Crowley had kept copies of his own letters, all of them, so many more than Aziraphale had received. 

He read for days, and when he finished, he went back, and started again.


	4. Chapter 4

Aziraphale knew his own weaknesses, his own sins. He knew he could be slow to change. He knew now he could be greedy and covetous and short-sighted in his selfishness.

But even he could learn a lesson taught so painstakingly over so many decades.

When he found Crowley in South Carolina in 1863, he was resting wearily among the goldenrods as the Union army prepared to march. Aziraphale gazed at him for a long, long time, at his rust-red hair against the yellow flowers so like his eyes had once been, and then he passed on without letting Crowley see him. He took a handful of softly swaying golden stems with him.

When he found Crowley in the Algarve in 1897, there were asphodels growing along the walls of his generous garden as he sat and read beneath a tree, signs of wealth and ease about his comfortable abode. It was harder, then, to walk away, when he heard Crowley's laughter, when he saw his clever fingers swiftly turn a page. He came back under the cover of darkness and cut the star-laden asphodel stalks and watched the gentle flicker of lantern light in a shuttered window for hours until it was finally put out.

When he found Crowley in Ypres in 1917, he was barely more than a boy, and it was already too late; he'd been gutshot and left to die in the mud. There were no flowers here, nothing but the hellscape of this war to end all wars, nothing but wasteland and poisoned water and the smell of death. Aziraphale tried to heal him, but he was so far gone, his soul was barely clinging to his mortal frame. He held him instead, cradled the child with Crowley's face, and wept for his silent, unwitnessed passing.

There were no flowers there, but later, when the bone-white crosses sprang up row on row, Aziraphale returned, and gathered poppies from beside his grave.

* * *

_London, 1941_

When the woman from the intelligence agency approached him, Aziraphale turned her away. The thought of playing her games of cat and mouse exhausted him. The Blitz was battering London, and every night he locked up the shop, and walked through the blackout, and did what he could to reinforce shelters and guide stragglers to safety. Once, he was so close to a bomb blast that it blew him off his feet, but all he suffered were cuts and bruises.

He wouldn't say he _wanted_ to be discorporated. He didn't know what he'd do in Heaven after all this time. But there was a heaviness, an emptiness, a dullness that had crept into him over the last century. A silence and a solitude that only trembled whenever he stumbled across Crowley's latest lifetime, and which he folded himself back into as soon as each chance had passed. There was something in him that didn't know what to do now, didn't know where to turn, didn't understand what his purpose was any longer.

Rose Montgomery was determined, he had to give her that. It took a rather strong miracle to persuade her she'd never heard of him, and that bought him a few weeks, and then she was back again, like a wasp that had caught the scent of jam.

And in her wake, a knock at the door, and honey-golden eyes under a broad-brimmed hat, a charming smile, face young and unlined. Arms overflowing with white tulips (a cover, he'd later explain, an excuse to knock on the bookshop door without arousing suspicion). Rose Montgomery wasn't what she seemed, Crowley said, his accent soft with a strong Scottish lilt; she was actually a member of the Nazi spy ring herself, acting as a lure to reel in unsuspecting prey. He, on the other hand, was a _bona fide_ member of the Secret Service, come to ensure that poor Mr Fell didn't fall into their trap.

If it had been anyone else, Aziraphale would have shut the door in their face and then emigrated to Australia until the war was done. But it was Crowley, Crowley half-laughing at the ridiculousness of his own explanation, Crowley trying to hide his genuine concern for the bookseller who might be hoodwinked, Crowley glancing around the shop with the faintest furrow in his brow, as if it were familiar to him. Crowley, bright and beautiful, eager and curiou, blazing into Aziraphale's world like a falling star.

Aziraphale let him in. Poured him a drink. Agreed to help. Just this, he thought, desperate, selfish, aching. Just this, just this one brief encounter. No reason for Crowley to stick around, as long as Aziraphale didn't give him one. Crowley handed him a bunch of tulips ("for the look of the thing") and Aziraphale let their fingers brush for just a moment, and shivered.

It all turned out as well as it could have. The Nazis were shot by Crowley's back-up when they tried to pull a double-cross, and Aziraphale couldn't find it in him to regret their deaths. Crowley wasn't hurt, even though he should have been, even though Rose had turned her pistol right on him and fired. Miraculously, some malfunction had caused the gun to explode in her hand, and Crowley had taken her down before she could even cry out.

The books weren't so much as scratched, and Crowley handed them over with a smile and a flourish, and offered Aziraphale a lift home. His car was an old one, fifteen years or more out of date, but it had clearly been a luxury model in its time, and Crowley kept it well-maintained, caressed it like it was a much-loved companion. A 1926 Bentley, Crowley explained when asked, his eyes lighting up, his smile proud, Aziraphale wouldn't believe what he'd had to do to get hold of it, oh, the stories this car could tell...

"It's beautiful," Aziraphale said, Aziraphale who'd never much cared for these modern contraptions and their smoke-spewing engines, but who couldn't help but love anything that Crowley loved so very much. "I've never seen one like it."

It was over too soon. Crowley walked Aziraphale to the bookshop door, and hesitated, and there was a moment...

There was a moment, and Aziraphale longed for what he knew would come next, if he allowed it.

Instead, he turned briskly away, said, "It's been a pleasure working with you, Mr Crowley. Good luck in your future endeavours."

"Oh. Yes." Maybe that was disappointment in Crowley's voice. Maybe it was just surprise at Aziraphale's abrupt goodbye. "You too, Mr Fell. Hope to see you on the other side of this mess."

He came back, a few weeks later. Aziraphale kept the door locked and pretended to be away. Crowley came back three more times, before he gave up, or was moved on to some other wartime role. Aziraphale found himself reaching for the case of letters, now brown with age and stiff with handling, but turned away, and went back to walking the night and saving those he could.

* * *

_London, 1967_

But Crowley came back one last time, decades later. Older now, and too thin, his cheekbones sharp with the wasting that came in the last months of life. He walked into the bookshop at the end of the day and stood there silently until Aziraphale looked up, recognised him.

"You know," Crowley said, and his voice was hoarse, as wrung out with sickness as the rest of him, "somehow I'm not surprised."

"You're not?" Aziraphale whispered, too shaken to even pretend not to know him.

"To find you still here," Crowley elaborated. His accent had faded, though you could still hear the Highlands in it. "Looking not a day older."

"I—"

Crowley coughed, turned away, fumbled a handkerchief out of his pocket and covered his mouth until he was done.

"Knew there was something weird about you," he continued when he could speak again. "I've dreamed of you, you know? Ever since we met."

Aziraphale sat silent, grief-stricken, repentant. Crowley's eyes flicked over his face, and he sighed.

"Doesn't matter now," he said gruffly. "Thing is, I don't have much time left."

"I know. I'm sorry."

Crowley shrugged, looked away.

"And I just wanted to know. If I was crazy, or if you really were... different."

Aziraphale rose to his feet, came around the desk, crossed the floor to where Crowley stood. Gently, he took Crowley's face in his hands, looked into his eyes, read the suffering written in every line carved into his face. Aziraphale breathed in, breathed out, and the pain eased out of Crowley, left him shaken and gasping, eyes very wide.

"What did you—"

"I can't save you," Aziraphale whispered, hundreds of years of meaning behind the words, simple and devastating. "But it won't hurt now, I promise. It will be easy, when the time comes."

Crowley swallowed, and folded like a puppet with its strings cut, and flung his arms around Aziraphale. And he smelled the same, how could he smell the same after a hundred and fifty years and four lifetimes, how could he feel like Aziraphale's own heart finally coming back into his chest?

"Thank you," Crowley said into his shoulder.

They stood like that for minutes that stretched like hours, and then finally Crowley pulled away, and rubbed the back of his hand over the tear-tracks on his cheeks, and said, "Yeah. Well. I'd better—"

"Go safely," Aziraphale told him, feeling his chest empty out again, hollow and full of regret.

"Thank you," Crowley said again, and then he was gone.

Almost a year later - Crowley never did give up without a fight - Aziraphale received a bequest he wasn't expecting. It came in the form of a set of keys in a brown envelope, a scrap of paper scribbled with the address of a run-down garage in Liverpool.

The Bentley looked worse for wear despite what had clearly been decades of attempts to keep it running and in good shape. Aziraphale didn't know much about cars, but he knew this one would in all likelihood never start again. There had been no instructions with the keys, no final request, but Crowley wouldn't have left it to him if he'd intended it to be sold for scrap.

He thought of what it had looked like that night in the Blitz, when Crowley had been so aglow with triumph, so joyful in his company. He closed his eyes, and snapped his fingers, and when he looked again, the car was almost pristine, showing only the kind of wear that meant it had been cherished and cared for.

Aziraphale didn't know how to drive, but that didn't really matter. He slid into the driver's seat, laid his hands on the wheel, and said quietly, "Would you kindly take me home?"

The Bentley did.

* * *

When he found Crowley barely half an hour from Soho in 2008, it was like tripping over a step you should have expected but had somehow forgotten. It was the name of the florist that caught Aziraphale's eye, _Eden's Gift_: how bold, how defiant, how ironic. It could have been any human's flight of fancy, he supposed, but as soon as he laid eyes on the place, he knew, even before he caught the faint glimpse of red hair through the reflections in the window.

He meant to walk away. He found himself opening the door instead.

And there he was: surrounded by flowers, long hair pinned back but strands escaping into his eyes, frowning at some complexity of the bouquet in his hand. Aziraphale drank him in, for a moment forgetting everything except _this, here, now_. His breath caught in his throat as he watched Crowley bite his lip, watched those clever fingers twist the ribbon just so, watched another strand of red hair drift lazily down past his ear to tickle his cheek.

He could still walk away. Crowley hadn't even looked up from his task, hadn't seen him yet. He could take this stolen glimpse and leave with it cradled to his chest. He _should_.

Then Crowley said, "Just a sec," and for the first time in all his lives his voice was the same as it had been _before_, the same language, the same accent, the same intonation, and Aziraphale couldn't leave, couldn't move, couldn't bear it.

"There you are," he said.

Crowley looked up.

* * *

It was a mistake, of course; of course it was a mistake. And when Aziraphale realised just how close he was to starting down the path that would destroy Crowley again, all he could do was run. All he could do was remove himself at once, even if it meant leaving the bookshop, even if it meant hurting Crowley. At least, after so short a time, it would be a small hurt, easily forgotten.

(Wouldn't it? How Crowley had looked at him, holding out that fern; how Crowley had looked at him, as Aziraphale shut the door in his face...)

He travelled aimlessly for months, as spring wore on into summer. He crossed the equator, turned the seasons upside-down, paused in Capetown, carried on to New Zealand where winter was unfurling brilliant icy fronds and the mountains were capped with blazing white. The grandeur of the scenery was unlike anything one could see in England, and yet in places it felt remarkably like home. 

Perhaps too much so. Down a Christchurch side-street he stumbled across a florist that looked just like Crowley's, except he could see at a glance that the flowers weren't half so well-kept. There were pink carnations in a bucket by the door. Aziraphale stood staring at them for a long time, and only realised his cheeks were wet when a tear dripped from his chin and landed on his tightly-clasped hands.

* * *

_Christchurch, 2008_

The wine here wasn't so good as the old French varieties, in his opinion, but it was acceptable if you got the right vintage, and at least none of it was anything he'd ever drunk with Crowley. And besides, the goal was not so much to savour it as to temporarily dull himself into a comfortable fog, without drinking so much that he could no longer contain the misery that was howling for attention in his chest. It was a delicate balance. On this particular evening, he wasn't maintaining it very well.

He was on his second bottle when he felt the shiver and shimmer of manifestation. He froze, and made sure to school his expression before he looked up. Gabriel was standing by his booth, eyeing him with faint bewilderment.

"Aziraphale," he said, all jovial bluster and casual disdain. "What are you doing all the way over here? I expected to find you in London."

He couldn't miracle himself sober, not with Gabriel right there. Aziraphale breathed carefully, made sure he was sitting straight without swaying, that his tongue framed syllables cleanly.

"I thought perhaps I'd been there rather a long while," he said, the words coming out precise and unslurred. "Didn't want to get too... _attached_, you know. Thought I should check in on the rest of the world."

"That's admirable, of course," Gabriel admitted, though his tone suggested that he preferred such 'admirable' decisions to be run by head office before being put into practice. He showed no sign of recognising the barb embedded in the word _attached_. "You'll need to head back, though. _Things_ are afoot."

"Things?"

"The big one," Gabriel said with an infuriatingly self-satisfied smirk. "The final showdown. The _end times_, Aziraphale. We have reliable information that the Antichrist is arriving on Earth as we speak."

Aziraphale stared at him, a rising tide of panic filling his throat until he could hardly breathe.

"Armageddon?" he croaked. "It's— it's happening _now_?"

"Well, not for another decade or so, the boy has to grow up first, of course. And we have to prepare for the battle. But it's all going down in England, so we'll need you on the ground there to keep an eye on things for the next eleven years."

"Eleven years." Despite Gabriel's presence, Aziraphale picked up his wine glass and took a long swallow. "And then... "

Gabriel was frowning down at him, eyes flicking to the bottles on the table.

"Why are you consuming _that_?" he asked, pointing disdainfully at the glass in Aziraphale's hand.

"It's wine," Aziraphale replied, too shaken and heartsick to be diplomatic. "Even you must know what wine is, Gabriel, they've had it since Noah. Shall I get you a glass?"

"I do not sully the temple of—"

"Yes, yes, I know." Aziraphale sighed. "You should try it sometime, you might like it more than you think."

"I highly doubt that." Gabriel was giving him an odd look - disapproving, yes, but also slightly wary, as if he wasn't sure what to make of Aziraphale talking back to him. "So you'll be returning to England then, as soon as possible?"

"I suppose I will." Aziraphale's heart clenched at the thought, but his mind was already racing ahead. What would happen to Crowley, when the world ended? Would he finally be restored to his true form, only to be thrust onto the battle lines, opposite Aziraphale, sword in hand? Or would he just... die with all the other humans? "Eleven years? That's all we have left?"

"Why so glum, Aziraphale? This is everything we've been working towards! It's time to reach out and seize the day!"

Aziraphale set his glass down. He stared at the gentle sloshing of the wine as it settled back into place. He thought of flowers, and books, and honey-brown eyes wounded and raw and broken because of his choices.

"Yes," he said finally. "Perhaps it is."

* * *

_Keep love in your heart. A life without it is like a sunless garden when the flowers are dead._  
\- Oscar Wilde

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[Podfic] Like a Sunless Garden](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21301274) by [Gorillazgal86](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gorillazgal86/pseuds/Gorillazgal86)
  * [The Pianist and The Serpent](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21480877) by [Rokikurama](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rokikurama/pseuds/Rokikurama)
  * [Exhiliration is the Breeze](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24878917) by [Stephquiem](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Stephquiem/pseuds/Stephquiem)


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